| Chiyoko Takahashi | |
| Birth Name: | Chiyoko Sakamoto Takahashi |
| Birth Date: | 30 June 1912 |
| Birth Place: | Napa, California, U.S. |
| Alma Mater: | American University Washington College of Law |
| Organization: | Japanese-American Bar Association and the California Women's Bar (founder of both) |
| Spouse: | Tohru Takahashi |
| Parents: | Hisamatsu and Kume Sakamoto |
Chiyoko Sakamoto (1912–1994) was California's first Japanese American female lawyer.[1]
Sakamoto was born on June 30, 1912, in Los Angeles, California, to Hisamatsu and Kume Sakamoto.[2] [3] In 1938, she was admitted to practice law shortly after graduating from the American University Washington College of Law in Los Angeles, California.[4] Sakamoto worked as a secretary during the four years of her legal studies.[5] She became a legal assistant for a Japanese-American community leader after searching in vain for a law firm position.[6] [7]
During World War II, following the signing of Executive Order 9066, Sakamoto was imprisoned in the Granada Internment Camp in Prowers County, Colorado.[8] Upon being released in 1947, she struggled yet again with finding employment.[9] Through her struggles, she met Harvard University-educated African-American attorney Hugh E. Macbeth Sr., who was a staunch defender of Japanese-Americans. He hired Sakamoto as an associate at his Los Angeles-based law firm. Sakamoto's coworkers included Eva M. Mack, a lawyer who worked with Macbeth Sr. on the California Supreme Court case Davis vs. Carter that pertained to a housing discrimination suit filed by jazz musician Benny Carter.[10] [11] [12] At the time, Sakamoto was unique in working for a non-Nisei law firm.
She eventually opened her own law firm in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles and was one of the founders of the Japanese-American Bar Association and the California Women's Bar. Sakamoto's husband, Tohru Takahashi,[13] was a farmer in New Mexico, and they owned various farms in California (she even managed some of them while simultaneously taking on cases).
Sakamoto died in 1994.